Sunday, February 09, 2014

The state of Florida has joined a lawsuit aimed at blocking a massive cleanup plan for Chesapeake Bay.

The Chesapeake Bay.

And, no, you can’t make this stuff up.

Last week, Florida
Attorney General Pam Bondi filed a brief — paid for with your taxes —
attacking the legality of the Chesapeake Bay Clean Water Blueprint.

The
plan was devised by six bay area states, the District of Columbia and
the federal government. Its mission is to improve water quality in the
rivers, streams and estuaries of the Chesapeake region.

A federal
judge upheld the terms of the so-called blueprint, which will limit the
amount of pollution being dumped, but the ruling is being appealed.

Why
would the state of Florida try to obstruct the cleanup of public waters
hundreds of miles away from our own? Because Bondi and Gov. Rick Scott
are complete tools.

They aren’t suing on behalf of the citizens of
Florida; they’re suing on behalf of big agricultural and development
interests that don’t want the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
enforcing clean-water laws anywhere.

Among the lobby groups trying
to dismantle the Chesapeake Bay Clean Water Blueprint are the American
Farm Bureau Federation, the National Home Builders and those famously
civic-minded folks at the Fertilizer Institute. They want us to trust
them to regulate their own pollution, and to hell with the EPA.

Quietly
these industries recruited Florida and 20 other states — most led by
Republican governors, of course — to join the lawsuit attacking the
Chesapeake Bay plan. Among the other shameless meddlers are Kansas,
Alaska and Indiana.

“To say we are outraged is a vast
understatement,” said Will Baker, president of the nonprofit Chesapeake
Bay Foundation. “We find it almost beyond belief for any state outside
of the Chesapeake Bay watershed to try to sue to stop us from cleaning
up our waters. What are they afraid of if we have clean water in the
Chesapeake Bay?”